A new experimental work relating to my MA Fine Art major final project (UCLan, Preston) devised and filmed as part of my residency at New Art Spaces Bolton - neo:artists in creative partnership with Castlefield Gallery.

It was a privilege and a pleasure to be invited to return to the University to given students an insight into how my BA Fine Art Degree here informed my thinking and making and how it continues to drive my creative research and practice.

10.30 - over the meadow, reedy grass, whispering, back lit, flighty; the rose garden, walled and rocky, a space to linger, a space to feel, a space to remember.
Extract from my performance with Geraldine Hudson at Studio 44 / ABF gallery, Stockholm on 11 November 2017.
My film Just around the corner, installation of Polaroid photographs on Dibond and tracing paper and the performance of Shifting Ground were the outcome of our six month collaboration which continues.

Our joint statement illuminates the process:
The theoretical discourse and mapping strategies that the two artists have pursued during their collaboration has spilled over into email exchange, online conversations and a simultaneous walk – Steph in Bolton and Geraldine in Stockholm on the same day in August 2017.  Crossing time zones, seasons and space but synchronising the physical reality of walking to explore sites of common heterotopia within their own town and city has opened a new dialogue and creative process to their practice that would not have happened on an individual basis.
The artistic outcomes are clearly just the start of an approach that brings an exciting and fluid dynamic to a sharing of ideas and critical reflection on the mutability of place.

My new project art space #Downtown is supported by Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces, in creative partnership with neo:artists.  Experimental projections are in progress developing works from recent Super 8 footage as source for my collaborative piece 'just around the corner' for the Corduroy exchange project between neo:artists in Bolton and studio44 in Stockholm.   More details here. 

Castlefield Gallery’s New Art Spaces (NAS) is an initiative to create dynamic project spaces for artists, artist collectives and artist development agencies. Making use of temporary vacant retail, office and light industrial units, NAS provides opportunities for emerging creatives to incubate their practices, produce work and showcase new art to local communities. Currently CG runs New Art Spaces in Bolton, Leigh, Rochdale, and Manchester City Centre.

Very pleased to be selected for this exhibition which is part of the Warrington Contemporary Arts Festival 2017 - opening shortly with two recent works - Beyond Nostalgia #1 and The Story of Betty Mace.  More details here.

So pleased to have been invited to take part in this exhibition with my work Heyday - imagined, devised and curated by Martyn Lucas and Paula Fenwick-Lucas.  In excellent company and looking forward to seeing how the Isherwood Gallery will be transformed into a truly intimate space.
More details here

Much more to follow ... thanks to Mark Aston for this photograph.

Delighted to have been shortlisted for the GM Arts Prize 2017 and to be exhibiting in The Greater Manchester Emerging Contemporary Arts Prize Summer Exhibition 2017.  From my series The land behind, Polaroid on Dibond.
More here

With thanks to Jason Lock. The exhibition continues until 29 July 2017.

Thanks to Rachel Dargavel-Leafe for such a lovely exhibition in the Lauriston Gallery and excellent PV at The Waterside Arts Centre, it was good to meet the other artists and see how we've all moved on in the past 12 months.  Thanks to everyone who came. The exhibition continues until 29 July 2017.

I'm very pleased to be showing new solar plate prints in this group exhibition from my series the land behind.
Preview Thursday 20 April 2017 6-9pm.  The Exhibition continues until 29 July 2017
More here

Fascinating exhibition of neo:artists' work in this first neo:open, striking in subject, media and form; too many favourites to mention, beautifully curated I floated round, surprised at every turn.  Delighted to have my piece Heyday included.

The year has turned, I am pleased to have work selected for forthcoming exhibitions:
Mono Open Exhibition at PS Mirabel, Manchester - Preview Thursday 12 January 6-9pm continues until 18 February 2017.
Hotbed Press 20:20 Print Exchange at neo:gallery23, The Market Place Bolton - Preview Saturday 14 January 2-4pm, continue to 12 February 2017.

A responsive series of Polaroid origin, mapped through multiple readings of the selected site of the former railway Park Hotel; a discrete realm then, this 'slippery place', this contested space, this heterotopian site of otherness.
MA Fine Art Site & Archive Intervention, UCLan - Developing Strategies for intervention.